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The first time Stiles is not the one driving, and he’s paying extra attention to the signs on the side of the road. When he spots the one saying “Welcome to Washington, DC” there’s a little lurch in his stomach. He’s been out of California before, years ago when his Mom was alive and they went on vacations. It was never far though, because both his parents only got so much time off. He’s on the other side of the country now, far away from everything that Beacon Hills stands for, and it feels a little unreal.
“You okay?” Lydia asks him when she notices the tension in his body.
“Yeah, just… taking it all in,” Stiles says. “It’s going to take a while to sink in that I’m really here. That we’re here.”
“You’ll be fine,” she tells him with a soft smile. “We’ll be fine.”
It’s not that he doesn’t believe her, but he knows it will be different. That everything will be new and maybe a little overwhelming.
The second time, he’s on a plane and can’t stop looking out of the window. The weeks that he spent here before — the whole summer — don’t feel like they really mattered all that much. Not when they ended with him returning to Beacon Hills again, back for the biggest crisis yet. But the weeks were also significant, because they — and the FBI — led him to the one man he didn’t think he’d ever see again.
Stiles breathes out heavily when the plane begins its descent, and he feels the warmth on the back of his hand before Derek’s palm touches it.
“You okay?”
It’s an echo of the question that Lydia asked that first time, but this time when Stiles nods, it feels more true.
“Let’s stick around here for a while,” he says.
“Gladly,” Derek replies, and there’s a smile on his lips. “Now that I’m off the wanted list.”
“They might need us,” Stiles says quietly after a few beats.
“Maybe. Maybe we’ll need them at some point.”
“Do you think…”
Stiles pauses, trying to figure out what he wants to ask first. Would the pack come to their aid if they needed it? Would they go back to help again? Would either of them consider returning to California for good?
“I think we have all the time in the world to figure it out,” Derek tells him, his hold on Stiles’s hand tightening. “I think if we go back, there better be a damn good reason. I think we will, because there are reasons… there always will be reasons. But I think that maybe we’ll have a chance to stay here for a while.”
“If I needed to go back…”
“I’d follow. No questions asked.”
Stiles looks at Derek, and there’s no sign of a lie in his face, no hesitation. And he knows that the same is true for him — that he’d follow Derek anywhere, including back to their old demons and ghosts.
“Okay,” he says simply. “But let’s not, for now.”
He’s as far from home as he’s ever been, but it doesn’t feel like it. Because really, home is right there by his side.